The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is overhauling its policies on immigration enforcement, establishing new protections for students and staff and setting clear limits on what district employees may do when federal immigration agents seek access to schools or school records.
The Board of Education took up a sweeping package of policy revisions at its most recent meeting, driven by a state-mandated deadline of March 1, 2026, requiring all California school districts to update their immigration enforcement policies and upload them to a new California Department of Education online portal.
The changes come in response to a significant shift in federal posture. In early 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security rescinded its longstanding policy that had limited immigration enforcement activities in schools and other "sensitive locations," a move that prompted the California Legislature to amend state education law and direct the state Attorney General to revise its model policy language for school districts.
"It's a lot of information," said Dr. Douglas Meza, the district's assistant superintendent of human resources, who presented the policy package to the board. "But I just wanted to provide you the context."
At the center of the update is a brand new board policy and administrative regulation — BP and AR 1445, Response to Immigration Enforcement — which consolidates and significantly expands upon a prior policy that district officials said was too narrowly focused on students alone.
The new policy spells out a list of actions district staff are explicitly prohibited from taking. Employees may not solicit or collect information about the citizenship or immigration status of a student or their family members. They may not disclose personal records or other confidential employee information. And they may not grant an immigration enforcement officer permission to enter a school bus, district-provided transportation, or any non-public area of district property or facilities.
Those prohibitions apply unless specific legal exceptions are met.
At the same time, the policy draws an important distinction: while staff cannot grant immigration officers access to campus, they are equally prohibited from obstructing, interfering with, or impeding an officer who nonetheless enters district property or transportation. The policy sets out specific protocols staff must follow should that occur, as well as procedures for responding if an officer requests student information or if a student's parent or guardian has been detained or deported.
An individual's immigration status may only be disclosed in strict accordance with BP 1445, and the district is required to notify parents annually that no information indicating a student's citizenship, immigration status, place of birth, or national origin will be released outside those parameters.
One of the more notable shifts in the updated policy framework is its expanded scope. The old policy being deleted — BP and AR 5145.13 — was described by district officials as too narrowly focused on students. The new BP 1445 explicitly extends immigration enforcement protections to district employees as well.
The updated policies also include new anti-discrimination requirements. Any complaint alleging discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or bullying based on a person's actual or perceived immigration status must now be handled through the district's uniform complaint procedures. The superintendent or a designee is required to provide copies of the relevant policy to the California Department of Education.
The policy revisions also touch on several other areas. Updates to the district's Comprehensive Safety Plan policy reflect new state law expanding who may participate in safety plan reviews and refining the definition of violent crime.
Brandyi Phillips, the district's chief communications officer, who co-presented the policy package alongside Meza, walked the board through updates to the Access to District Records policy. She explained that the revised regulation incorporates new law governing the confidentiality of financial information provided by Native American tribes to public agencies, and that it now explicitly links the disclosure of any individual's immigration status to the protocols established under the new BP 1445. Phillips also outlined updates stemming from new law that broadens the circumstances under which the district may extend its timeline for responding to public records requests — including in cases of cyberattacks or declared states of emergency.
Because of the March 1 deadline, Meza told the board the updated documents would be cleaned up and uploaded to the state portal prior to formal board approval, which is expected at the next regular board meeting. The California School Boards Association notified districts of the requirement in mid-January 2026, giving school officials only weeks to review, revise, and adopt policies aligned with model language issued by the state Attorney General in December 2025.